Agricultural studies by the University of Illinois soil scientists have shown “that nitrogen fertilizers deplete Soil Organic Carbon while causing a decrease in corn growth and yield.” Researchers from Rice University and Michigan State University have shown “that over-fertilization of corn with nitrogen fertilizer reduces ethanol production.” Researches from the University of Zurich determined that “soils store three times as much carbon as plants and the atmosphere. Soil organic matter plays a key role in the global carbon cycle as it stores significant amounts of carbon and thus counters global warming and the Kyoto Protocol permits signatory countries to count soils as so-called carbon sinks.” The Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management issued a Position Statement regarding “the need for recycling phosphorus from wastewater treatment plants.” Agronomists throughout the world have determined that “there is a major sulfur deficiency in farm soils and the lower the soil carbon the more likely sulfur deficiencies occur.” Nutritionists and agronomists determined “that there is major global zinc deficiency in most soils which causes decreases in crop yields and serious zinc deficiencies in children.” The application rates for zinc are relatively small therefore it is almost impossible to apply an even spread over each farm acre. To add organic material from sewage sludge and animal manures require a product that has similar or better physical and chemical characteristics than commercial fertilizers for which there are specific standards. However, most or all of the products produced from sewage sludge and animal manures cannot be transported, stored or applied through the established standard distribution fertilizer infrastructure. The majority of the farmers and food security advisors, testing associations and laboratories require that sewage sludge and/or animal manures be sterilized before use on food chain crops. IFDC, the leader in independent fertilizer pilot plant production and crop research conducted a major study to determine the leaching and volatilization characteristics of urea and multi-nutrient single accreted granule enhanced efficiency fertilizer produced through the present process. The results provided significant differences and showed that the multi-nutrient single accreted granule enhanced efficiency fertilizers leached and volatilized significantly less than urea therefore providing more nutrients in the crop root zones at reduced fertilizer costs.
Primary, secondary and/or tertiary wastewater treatment facilities exist for domestic (e.g., serving municipalities, cities, counties, authorities), livestock (e.g., treating swine, cattle, chicken wastes), commercial and industrial (e.g., treating pharmaceutical processing, food processing, and the like) wastewater which produce a liquid stream and solid waste material. These wastewater treatment facilities produce organic solid waste material in the form of undigested sludges, digested sludges, partially digested sludges, liquid sludges, dewatered sludges, and the like.
Wastewater treatment facilities typically treat and then separate liquid waste streams from the organic waste material. Initially, the organic waste material typically has a solids content of about 0.5% to about 10% by weight, and is referred to as liquid sludge. The liquid sludge can be dewatered using various types of dewatering equipment including but not limited to vacuum filters, screw presses, plate and frame presses, belt filter presses and centrifuges to form a dewatered sludge having a typical solids content of about 13% to about 45% by weight.
Chemical dewatering polymers are used to maximize the water release from the organic waste material during dewatering. Chemical dewatering polymers are synthetic, organic flocculants that act on the solids' electrical charges to increase coagulation bonds that enhance water release from the organic sludge solid waste material and result in increased solids concentration in the dewatered material. The chemical dewatering polymers create a dewatered material with high viscosity characteristics resulting in a material that is nonfluid, and thus difficult to pump, and which continues to have low oxidation reduction potential (ORP) and can be odorous.
Traditional fertilizer manufacturing processes exist for generating and/or mixing and blending a fertilizer(s) (e.g., Monoammonium Phosphate (MAP), Diammonium Phosphate (DAP), Ammonium Sulfate (AS), Ammonium Phosphate Sulfate, NPK blends) through steps that can include reacting a material or materials, granulating the reacted material with or without other fertilizer liquids or solids, and drying the granulated material or mixed or blended materials.
The industrialized and developing countries throughout the world all have a significant need to increase crop production, increase crop yields along with crop quality, and reduce fertilizer nitrogen leaching and volatilization while recycling phosphorous and organic waste material generated by humans and animals. The organic waste material is generated principally from sludges received from domestic wastewater treatment facilities, livestock manure treatment facilities, and industrial wastewater treatment facilities. Dewatered sludge produced by such facilities is generally viscous (typical viscosity in excess of 500,000 centipoise and up to 2,000,000 centipoise), which makes it difficult to produce a fluid, odor-free, combustion-free consistent product directly from dewatered sludge. Products that are produced directly from dewatered sludge are generally of poor quality, and generally do not meet commercial fertilizer standards as defined in the Manual for Determining Physical Properties of Fertilizer 2nd Edition (International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) February, 1993) and Association of American Plant Food Control Officials (AAPFCO) standards. In addition, because the dewatered sludge is generated from a variety of different facilities, each having potentially different waste streams and treatment processes, the dewatered sludge is generally heterogeneous in nature.
The following are some of the major chemical, biological, physical, economic, logistical and operational problems of existing wastewater treatment facilities that prevent the efficient and profitable recycling of organic waste material: inability to process waste materials from multiple, varied sources; inability to substantially eliminate pathogens, and odor in treated materials; inability to produce a treated material that is flowable; and/or inability to produce a dust-free, odor-free, combustion-free treated material that is homogenous; inability to produce fertilizer that meets the specifications of commercial fertilizer, and further in the Manual for Determining Physical Properties of Fertilizer, 2nd Edition and Association of American Plant Food Control Officials (AAPFCO) standards.
There is a need in the art for an efficient process to alleviate all of these issues and problems. The present process and pipe-reactor granulation system produce multi-nutrient single accreted granule enhanced efficiency fertilizers that overcome these issues and problems. The multi-nutrient single accreted granule enhanced efficiency fertilizer produced through the present process and the pipe-reactor granulation system extracts carbon and amino acid from organic wastes and utilizes them as precursors to produce the new generation “Enhanced Efficiency Fertilizers.” The present process using pipe reactor granulation equipment is vital and necessary to complete chemical conversion and sterilization for the production of multi-nutrient single accreted granule enhanced efficiency fertilizers.